When people used to routinely mock synchronized swimmers for their peacock makeup and matching nose clips, the nation's top competitors in the sport held a trump card: Olympic medals. But ahead of the London Games last summer, the U.S. failed to qualify as a team in the sport for the first time—a low-water mark for a nation that dominated synchronized swimming from its glittery Olympic launch in 1984.

Russia now owns synchro, as it is called, winning gold at the past four Olympics in both the women's duet and team competitions. China and Spain also have surged, winning the other four of six available medals last summer in London. The U.S. has not medaled since winning two bronzes in 2004.

In an effort to pull synchronized swimming from the shower-drain of sports obscurity, a revamped governing body has declared May "Synchro de Mayo," a push to expose newcomers to the sport through performances and free lessons. The hope is that expanded membership in USA Synchro will attract corporate sponsorship and build the U.S. team, said the national governing body's new executive director Julie Swarts, a former gymnast and coach who also works as a gymnastics judge.

The task is daunting. While other nations fund their synchronized swimmers' housing and training, the U.S. is relying on more modest tools to reach the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro—among them, the YMCA and Bingo.

"We're trying to get more recreational groups involved, because the sport's too narrow in terms of its base," said Francis Sargent, president of Aquamaids in Santa Clara, Calif., a club that claims numerous Olympians.

For years the Aquamaids have run a bingo hall with swimmers and their parents working the aisles. In 2011 it took in $2.4 million—$1 million more than USA Synchro's annual budget—that help offset competitors' costs, which can otherwise exceed $10,000 a year per swimmer. Another prominent club, the Walnut Creek (Calif.) Aquanuts, also relies on bingo to fund its activities.

Swarts also has reached out to the YMCA, which has about 2,200 pools nationwide, to help facilitate the sport's spread. USA Synchro aims to increase its number of registered members to 5,800 this year from the current 5,400, and to 10,000 by the 2016-2020 Olympic cycle, Swarts said.

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Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva
Getty Images

Evidence that the grassroots emphasis is paying off: Emma Baranski of Hamden, Conn., won first place in the junior solo competition at last month's national championships in Greensboro, N.C. Baranski is unusual among elite synchronized swimmers, in that she is from the East Coast and competes with a YMCA-based team, in New Canaan, Conn.

A continuing struggle for synchronized swimming in the U.S. is its lack of a superstar. Perhaps its two most recognizable athletes are comedians. Martin Short and Harry Shearer starred in a 1984 "Saturday Night Live" piece as hapless men trying to break into the all-women's sport, Short sporting an orange life preserver and declaring with a grin that he couldn't swim.

Swarts said such ridicule "set the sport back." A spokeswoman for Short declined to comment. But Swarts acknowledged that "we can't be so intense that we can't laugh at ourselves a little bit." To wit: The Americans who finished 11th at the London Games as a duet, Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva, recently appeared on an episode of the improv-comedy show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" that will run this summer.

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